Master data management (MDM) technology typically includes a set of processes and tools that define non-transactional entities of an organization in a persistent manner. These non-transactional entities can include customers, products, items, vendors, employees, users, or other suitable non-transactional entities. These non-transactional entities, also referred to as master data, are important assets for a company. The scope of Master Data Management includes creation as well as maintenance of such master data.
There are a number of commercial MDM products in the market, which are supplied by vendors such as IBM (e.g., IBM-WPC), SAP (e.g., SAP-MDM), and Tibco (e.g., Tibco-CIM). These existing commercial MDM products do not completely facilitate the master data management process. For example, users of these commercial MDM products desire degrees of customization and flexibility that are not completely satisfied by any of these products.
Currently-available commercial MDM products come with their own bundled user interface (UI) and provisions to model MDM data according to a particular MDM system's requirements. The products can provide a limited set of features that facilitate processes related to item creation, item-search, item-copy, search, data quality, data enrichment, and other suitable features. Further, the user interface bundled with MDM products is typically not easily customizable to include new screens and functionality. This restricts the business process and use cases of MDM users, forcing them to change or limit their business processes. Data models supported by MDM products also have limited flexibility when it comes to modeling various MDM entities and relations.